The Good Stuff
yes to possibility
Hi, Friend.
I hope your week is off to a good start. I’m a bit discombobulated (that word is nearly onomatopoetic, isn’t it, sounding as bobble-headed as it suggests?) from a 24-hour trip to New York over the weekend. I was in town for the Brooklyn Book Festival, which was really lovely: thank you BKBF! I saw some old friends, met some new ones, and encountered moving work that I’ll be metabolizing for a good long time.
If you made it to my event at the festival: thank you for coming! If I saw you wandering the book fair in the sunshine: good to see you! And if not, maybe next time? I’ll be at the Miami Book Fair in November, in conversation with the brilliant Hannah Pittard, whose memoir I heartily recommended to you all last month.
This month, my book recs are varied! I recently read and loved Turn: The Journal of an Artist by Anne Truitt, Quality Time by Suzannah Showler, and A Living Remedy by Nicole Chung.
And HOLY WOW, poetry readers, you are going to want to get your hands on Trey Moody’s Autoblivion, his second prizewinning collection of poems. Just trust me on this one. I had the honor of reading the manuscript early on and giving Trey feedback on it, and I was STILL walloped by the poems when the book arrived. They caught me by surprise again. Every time I read them they catch me by surprise.
Some beauty in the past couple of weeks: the sky in my neighborhood and the most beautiful roses I’ve ever received.
You know I listen to music constantly. When I’m walking in my neighborhood, sometimes with Phoebe the Boston terrier in tow, I’m often listening to Pavement, Phoenix, The Replacements (I’m coveting the new box set!), and boygenius. When I drive my son to his soccer games, we play the hype music of his choice, which tends to be 90s hip hop. I mentioned in a previous post that I’d made an alt-country playlist, and one of you asked me to share it, so here it is: Lie in the Grass & Look Up.
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Recent online reads that moved me: This beautiful piece by Sarah Wildman that broke my heart and stitched it back together again; this interview with Ocean Vuong; this piece on identity, which had me thinking about the nesting dolls metaphor in You Could Make This Place Beautiful; and Connie Schultz’s piece on ambition from her terrific Substack newsletter, Hopefully Yours.
Three things I streamed recently and really enjoyed: The Woman King, which was impossible to turn away from, thanks especially to the mindblowingly talented Viola Davis; Painkiller, which enraged me and broke my heart, but I’m so glad I watched it; and, for something completely different, Chef’s Table: Pizza, which was inspiring and also made me want to eat carbscarbscarbscarbs.
When Ann Kim of Pizzeria Lola and Young Joni in Minneapolis won a James Beard Award (presented to her by Peter Sagal, who I had the pleasure of laughing my ass off with on NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me recently), she said, “10 years ago I said 'fuck fear.' By saying no to fear, I said yes to possibility, and my greatest hope in doing so is to give permission for you to do the same. We cannot be what we cannot see.”
AMEN TO ALL OF THAT.
What’s bringing you joy these days? What’s giving you a sense of possibility?
Wishing you more of it—
Maggie
The Milwaukee airport has a Recombobulation Area…complete with sign…after going through security. Always makes me chuckle.
Loved, loved and love! I love the way you're taking us to what you see, what you do and how you feel. Thank you Maggie, the good stuff in your life you share! Love!